PTC biology and composition students embrace Food Literacy Week

Students in biology instructor Alexis Grinde’s courses and students in Stacey Foster’s college composition courses are collaborating in a unique project during Food Literacy Week, Oct. 11 through Oct. 15.

Inspired at the annual PTC fall inservice held in August, Grinde and Foster participated in a learning communities workshop facilitated by Emily Lardner of the Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education. Lardner discussed the importance of establishing learning communities -- a way of organizing groups of students and their teachers across the boundaries of traditional courses, making learning more integrated, more engaging and more meaningful. As a result, Grinde and Foster are bringing biology and composition students together in a collaborative project, and the results are on display in PTC's main hall this week.

Students in Foster’s classes created brochures and/or newsletters reviewing the importance of avoiding plagiarism and discussing ways to analyze and discover credible sources for research. These brochures were shared with Grinde’s biology students who then researched topics related to food and used their new lessons from the composition students regarding finding credible sources. Guided by both Grinde and Foster, the different groups of biology students researched the following topics: genetically modified food; energy drinks; the process milk takes from cow to store; breastfeeding and formula feeding; sugars -- natural, high fructose corn syrup, and artificial; and organic and inorganic food and farming.

Based on the research they discovered, the biology students prepared posters and brochures now on display during Food Literacy Week. The next phase in the collaborative project will see Foster’s students using the research and presentations prepared by the biology students to find supporting evidence as they prepare either a process essay or a comparison/contrast essay.

"The intent is to get students to think harder about real-world dilemmas and to learn what their places in the dilemmas are," explains Foster. With this project, Grinde and Foster are optimistic this will take place.